Posco has introduced robotic systems for building maintenance and customer services at its Seoul headquarters, including a robot that cleans the exterior of the multistory building, as the steelmaker seeks to boost worker safety and operational efficiency.
The company said Friday it has established a smart facility management system at Posco Center in southern Seoul, together with Posco Wide, its facility management affiliate, deploying robots for tasks ranging from exterior and floor cleaning to beverage delivery.
Posco said the initiative is designed to shift high-risk and repetitive work to robots while allowing employees to focus on safer and higher-value tasks.
The company began operating the robot on the building’s exterior on Sept. 5 after completing tests on lower sections of the building. Posco said it is the first such deployment for curtain-wall glass cleaning in Korea.
The robot is expected to reduce workers’ exposure to hazardous high-altitude work, while improve the safety and consistency of exterior cleaning.
The deployment comes after Posco began testing cleaning robots in March. It conducted a two-month trial at the building’s exterior, lobby and underground parking areas. Company officials also visited an international cleaning industry exhibition in Shanghai in April to review global technologies and applications before selecting systems suitable for Posco Center.
The lobby cleaning robot can operate for about three to four hours on a single charge and clean roughly 990 square meters, while the parking-lot robot can operate for up to eight hours and cover about 1,980 square meters.
Posco said the automated systems are intended to reduce the physical burden on cleaning staff and cut repetitive nighttime work while improving cleanliness and operating efficiency.
At its business lounge in Posco Center, the company deployed three robots, including two that deliver beverages and one that collects empty cups. Together, they handle about 100 orders a day on average, the company said.
Posco said the robots reduce the need for visitors to move between meeting spaces and the cafe, improving convenience for people using the business lounge.
A robotic barista has also been installed in a rest area at the Steel Gallery on the first floor of the center’s west wing, offering visitors automated coffee service.
Posco said it plans to expand the use of robotics in facility management, particularly for hazardous and repetitive task, as part of efforts to improve workplace safety, efficiency and convenience at its facilities.
sahn@heraldcorp.com
